


To view the last of me, a living frame

by Gwerfel



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Cornelius Hickey Is His Own Warning, Gen, Gore, Scurvy, Suffering, fitzjames' boots, sick tent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:01:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwerfel/pseuds/Gwerfel
Summary: Fitzjames is dying and Hickey has some suggestions.Written for the Terror Bingo 2020 fill: Fitzjames' Boots.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27
Collections: The Terror Bingo





	To view the last of me, a living frame

_ My first thought was, he lied in every word, _

_ That hoary cripple, with malicious eye _

_ Askance to watch the workings of his lie _

_ On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford _

_ Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored _

_ Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. _

He wakes up and he is not alone. His eyelids will not obey him; it takes long, aching minutes.

When they finally open the light is dim, it's hard to see, but he knows someone is there. His senses have all but left him, and yet still his skin crawls like an animal; a bestial instinct that cannot be doused even by scurvy. He is being watched.

He can hear their movements, the sound hideously amplified by whatever new malady afflicts him now. A rummaging, rustling noise scrapes the tender insides of his ears like a stiff bristled brush. 

He cannot get up to look, he barely has the strength to turn his head. Surely Bridgens would have announced himself by now.

He squints and peers until his eyes feel loose in their sockets, rotten at the very stems. Everything is grey. He hasn’t seen colour in weeks - only red when he closes his eyes. A miserable oily fog has filled the tent, queer shapes slide across his vision. It might be day or night, he may have slept hours or only closed his eyes a moment. The pain he feels with each breath is a reminder that he is alive, still, and that death is waiting quietly somewhere not so far away. 

It is not Bridgens, he’s certain. Nor Dundy, nor Francis. With wrenching agony, James twists his neck to see the creature crouching in the corner of his sick tent. 

“Don’t mind me, captain,” says a hushed voice - the voice of a sailor, it might be any of them. Sent in by someone to fetch something, perhaps. He can’t remember if he has anything of any use. He supposes not, considering his situation.

“What are you doing?” James croaks, plucking weakly at his blankets, though they cover him perfectly well. 

“Looking.”

Frowning, confusion swilling in his hollow skull, he tries to raise his head. The pain is worse than anything yet, he feels it in every bone, as though all of the tissue which holds him together is falling away, tearing like wet paper. 

The stranger, unaware of his suffering, straightens and turns around, brushing his coat down briskly. He’s wearing a long coat - an  _ officer’s _ coat, but it isn’t. It can’t be.

“Got my eye on those boots,” says Mr Hickey, close enough now that James can make out the red whiskers on his devilish face, his leering grin. 

“You!” James hisses, and means to cry out, but Hickey reaches calmly forward and presses two fingers against his bloody lips. The salt on his skin stings and burns.

“Shh,” he says, “don’t trouble yourself, I’m not staying long.”

A fever dream, the misery of the landscape, his death throes even - anything might summon up a delusion such as this. Hickey is gone - he took the others and he left. He cannot have returned, Francis would have said so. James doesn’t know the news of the camp, not anymore. Even if somebody did tell him then perhaps he has forgotten. He racks his brain for a memory; for the last piece of information he received. His thoughts ooze, grey as sludge.

“Awful, this,” Hickey says, gesturing at Fitzjames’ prone body. “Wouldn’t do it to a dog.”

“Get out,” speaking hurts, the cold air whistles through his throat, scorching his insides. He coughs, and tears spring from the dreadful clawing sensation in his chest. 

“Scurvy. Happening with us, too,” Hickey’s eyes scour him, as frank as a butcher. “Not this bad yet.”

“G-Goodsir,” James wheezes, part of his good sense returning to him - something important, he’s sure.

“He’s very well,” Hickey smiles, pouring a little water from the flask Bridgens has left behind into a crystal glass carried with them from Erebus. “I shouldn’t waste time worrying about him. You’ve bigger things to concern yourself with, by the looks of it.”

Hickey drinks from the glass, two gulps.

“What do you want?”

“Only looking.”

Hickey pulls back the blankets slowly, and James raises his arms to stop him but the spear of pain which pierces his chest is enough to blind him. The cold air is nothing to him. It is soothing - it promises sleep. 

Next Hickey peels his bandages away from his ribs. He pulls a face at the stench. “Can’t be comfortable, that.” 

He presses his icy fingers against the wound. James’ vision explodes, splitting, roaring, grinding pain; his exhausted body sings with torment. 

“You haven’t got long,” Hickey says, withdrawing and replacing the bandages, wiping his fingers on the blankets. “A day or two, if that. I could help you, if you like? Won’t hurt.” 

He lays the cool back of his hand against James’ temple, and he wants it, he wants it. The sick hot bubble burning in his throat threatens to spill over and choke him. 

He opens his eyes and shakes his head with all the strength he can muster.

Hickey withdraws his hand and pulls a face, “no skin off my nose,” he says flippantly. “But you might think about it. If not me then someone else.”

James attempts to draw own his features into an expression of disdain, finding himself too weak to voice it. His skin feels loose over his cheeks, clammy like old meat. 

Hickey must see the suffering it causes him, he tuts and shakes his head in mock sympathy. “There’s more pain coming, you know,” he says. “And not much else. You ought to make the best of things.”

James closes his eyes, furious. Treacherous tears slide out from beneath his burning eyelashes. He feels a burst of icy air against his face, the world lights up blood red, and when he looks again he is quite alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Poem excerpt is from "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning


End file.
